Working paper posted on Mises!

Community Conversions

Posted by Michael Wiebe at 10:25 pm 3 Responses »

Dec 282008

An educational strategy for achieving anarchy I’ve thought up is community conversions: teaching anarchism to specific intellectual or cultural communities, like atheists, gun nuts, 9/11 Truthers, anti-war groups, personal development gurus, spiritual teachers, cannabis activists, etc. The best communities would be ones with a distinct leader, who could directly influence their followers. Web-savvy communities would be preferred, as virtually all of the anarchist community and literature is online.

Essentially, this strategy is just one result of applying the 80/20 principle to conversions. Who would be the most profitable converts? Who could promote anarchism most efficiently? Who would have the strongest influence on the masses, or on the elites?

In terms of actually converting a community, I would follow a two-step approach. First, make the standard case that government is immoral, unnecessary, and doesn’t work. Second, show how anarchism is congruent with that community. Make specific, practical links between anarchist philosophy and the community, and show why they should support anarchism. For example, anti-war groups should oppose the State because it is the institutionalization of war. Keep reading...

Ecognorance

Posted by Michael Wiebe at 4:55 pm 21 Responses »

Dec 232008

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a “dismal science.” But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” – Murray Rothbard

There is no question Rothbard was addressing the vast majority of humanity when he wrote the above quotation. After all, it is true: nearly everyone is completely ignorant of economic reasoning, and yet nearly everyone holds very strong opinions on economic subjects. Just think about the many, many basic economic fallacies that are accepted as common knowledge:

minimum wage
rent control
price controls
price gouging
drug prohibition
gun control
protectionism
bailouts
Keynesianism
stable price level
government can create jobs
anti-trust regulations
etc. ad nauseum

People just do not understand the basics of supply and demand or the price system, or the incentive structure of a tax-funded monopoly. For example, the average person is ignorant of the fact that a minimum wage will unemploy marginal workers, or that there are systematic reasons why there are long lines at the post office and not at the supermarket.

Clearly, those of us who do understand economic reasoning will have to address this widespread ignorance. But instead of having to use the unwieldy phrase “economic ignorance” over and over, I have coined the term ecognorance (e-COG-nor-ance) to designate the ignorance of economics so prevalent today. Thus, “ecognorance” as a noun means the condition of economic ignorance, while the adjective “ecognorant” designates being unaware of economic knowledge. For example, we would say that statists are ecognorant, or that they live in a state of ecognorance.

I foresee that this new term will save a lot of economists’ time in pointing out how ecognorant people are. (See? Before I would have used the clunky, longer phrase “economically ignorant”. Linguistic efficiency!)

Against Democracy

Posted by Michael Wiebe at 5:13 pm 37 Responses »

Dec 142008

Introduction

Democracy is universally held up as the sacred political ideal. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that democracy is a secular religion. Observe: We fight wars for it (“Making the world safe for democracy”). We are implored to blindly participate in it (“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote”). And most tellingly, it is taboo to question it. Anyone who claims that democracy is bad is likely to be labeled a Nazi. (Even though Hitler was democratically elected and much of Nazism was promoted with democratic rhetoric.)

Nevertheless, I will attempt to prove that democracy is one of the worst political ideologies, on par with dictatorship and communism. My argument is three pronged. First, democracy is founded on initiatory violence. It is thus no more acceptable than murder or rape. Second, it can be refuted by a reductio ad absurdum; namely, that while we accept democracy for government, we would never accept it applied consistently in our lives. Third, democracy is unnecessary. What is there to vote on? All essential functions of society can be provided voluntarily and competitively on the market. Programs like the minimum wage and rent control are actually counter-productive, and can be eliminated altogether. There are many other problems with democracy: its ineffectiveness, its corruption, its total war, and its decivilization effect; but I will not address these here (see Hoppe). Last, I will address two strategies to undermine and weaken democracy: not voting and secession. Keep reading...

Anti-intellectual Intellectualism

Posted by Michael Wiebe at 11:41 pm 4 Responses »

Dec 052008

The first obvious strategy for anarchists is education: we need to teach people that government is immoral, unnecessary, and doesn’t work. But how do we achieve this? Do we convert the masses or the intellectuals? Do we emphasize morality or practicality?

Hans Hoppe has provided the answer to such questions with his strategy of “Anti-intellectual Intellectualism”. Following Boétie’s insight that governments derive their power and legitimacy from public opinion, we must recognize that it is the intellectuals who shape this public opinion. Accordingly, Hoppe calls for “anti-intellectual intellectuals” to take up the task of combating the state intellectuals, and ultimately delegitimizing, and hence destroying, the State. The two main branches of this strategy are (1) rooting one’s arguments in morality, and not mere utilitarianism, while (2) circumventing academia and reaching out to the general public. Thus, Hoppe writes, “states, as powerful and invincible as they might seem, ultimately owe their existence to ideas and, since ideas can in principle change instantaneously, states can be brought down and crumble practically overnight.” Keep reading...

Immigration II: Electric Boogaloo

Posted by Michael Wiebe at 6:20 pm 1 Response »

Dec 032008

This article is a sequel to my previous post “Root Causes and the Libertarian Immigration Debate”. Continuing the discussion on what strategy libertarians should follow with regards to immigration, I will argue that even if we accept the Hoppean argument for closed borders, the conclusion still violates libertarian principles.

Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty

In chapter thirty of his book “The Ethics of Liberty”, Rothbard laid down the groundwork of anarchist strategy. Basically, there are two principles libertarians must keep in mind when pursuing strategy. First, we must not violate the nonaggression principle. Second, we must be abolitionists, for advocating anything less than the immediate abolition of aggressive violence would mean the sanctioning of injustice. Keep reading...